Can anyone recommend a Cree light?

apreading

Get yer fence fixed!

pangolin

I can't imagine needing more than my SSC P7 for road use, it's on medium most of the time. That picture of it does look quite dim compared to mine, but it's probably just the picture.

meanredspider

pangolin wrote:

But did he have 2 sets?

Don't get me wrong, I do understand they're quality lights, and the whole 'buy cheap, buy twice' thing. For me I think they are a bit too far along the 'buy expensive' scale. But if you like them, and you can afford them, carry on

Yes - helmet and bike

Yup - respect that choice. Believe me, though, that even £300 isn't that much compared to what people spend. The point is this though: if it's good enough to win in those conditions (rocks, ice, mud, trees, twilight, sunrise, very fast narrow sweeping descents) the power is quite ample for commuting. The helmet lights are really only needed on the Puffer because you're often looking in a different direction than you're cycling - so it's not that you need two sets in order to see it's that you need two sets to do different jobs. For commuting, I find one set on the bars fine. I wear a lid light (F&R) to be seen over the frequent blind dips and over hedges on the singletrack back roads. These are flashing and relatively low power.

supersonic

pangolin wrote:

I can't imagine needing more than my SSC P7 for road use, it's on medium most of the time. That picture of it does look quite dim compared to mine, but it's probably just the picture.

Oh I agree, the P7 is perfectly adequate for commutin, nice flood - I think the reflection from the hot spot in the pic made the xmls look more floodier and brighter than they were.

In pure darkness, and off road, I like a P7 and XML combo, or use the triple. With three modes you can turn the thing down, but if you absolutely must light the trail/road/canal path up for 500m then you can! £30 too...

CRAIGO5000

The Macro Drive has been tested and it's pretty much what I expected, nothing more and nothing less for the cost involved.

I wanted a decent light for unlit training in the lanes during Winter and to be seen properly on the daily commute. I didn't want a separate battery pack. During Winter, my training sessions don't last more than 3 hours so to have 300 lumens at hand for a whole session in the dark or 200 for 4.5 hours is ample. To have it charge via USB is perfect for me and on the two occasions I've charged it, it's taken 4.5 hours.

The on/off button is great as it's a soft touch but also has a green and red led in it. It lights green when the battery has over 75%, green and red when under that and then red when under 25% I believe? When under something like 10% it apparently goes into a flash mode and stays red.

The lens seems to be very well engineered. No matter what angle you point it at, it seems to create a noticeable stark point when stood infront of it, even from angles up to a good 45 degree. This is good as it does catch your attention imagining myself as an on-coming driver who's not really paying attention. From turning it on, on 200 and 300 lumens modes you get a nice amount of halo which touches the front wheel and edges of the hoods on handlebars which then merges into a concentrated spot which I've set-up to look ahead 10m or so. The halo obviously runs off higher than that as road signs glow up a good 100m down the road which I'm really impressed with. The emitted light is very white with a light blue HID tone to it. It's not in anyway yellow.

One thing Im a little disappointed with is that in terms of brightness, it seems to match the usual yellow road lighting as the spot seems to disappear in decently lit areas but then if all areas were like this, a light to see where your are going wouldn't be required. Obviously it would be great to have more lumens here to see every nook and cranny of the road surface but I'm not going to complain as it's not what I intended it's use for. Straying off into dark unlit lanes and it's great and I can ride at a decent pace with confidence.

It was tested properly on a club run last night with a mix of road lit and unlit lanes and it performed brilliantly - it also got some nice comments from fellow riders saying how bright it was and asking what make of light it was. I switched from 200/300 lumen mode over the 3 hours we were out and it still has a decent amount of battery life left according to the LED battery indicators.

I'd say the standard is a little lower than this image on the Wiggle site of the older (less efficient) power drive model; Maybe it's because at 18mph+, you don't analyse what's going on in the peripheral as you're looking into the distance as far as you can for pot holes!

One poor thing about this light for me is that it comes with a heavy duty rubber band fitting (ala Garmin). Great for swapping between bikes, but can take a while to get the angle set-up correctly. I've noticed that on my oversize Deda bars, I've had to fix it on one of the extra tight settings to prevent it moving. It now doesn't move at all but a screw-strap on some of the less expensive models would have been suited better and looked cleaner imo.

If I was being greedy, I'd say another 100 lumens would be perfect but to buy the Super drive would cost me £80 and it would also only last for 1.5 hours on that mode! I'd sooner have 300 lumens for 3 hours.

Once someone can manufacture a real 500 lumen LED that can run for 3 hours of a single charge without the need for a separate battery pack - then I'll buy it.

Woah! That's a lot of waffle about a light!

supersonic

Nice review! There are a few 'light in a can options' that will easily do 500 lumens and 3 hours, but they are bulkier. The double cell torches with XML LEDs will do 3-4 hours at 500 lumens.

Mike45450

pangolin wrote:

Or this one for a complete simple setup

http://www.bikeradar.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=17265285#17265285

How sturdy is the switch mechanism on those torches? I have some random cheap torch I got from ebay, and It's starting to bug me because it keeps switching modes whenever I go over a mild bump.

gosport_commuter

That problem for me on mine was caused by the battery rattling about inside the torch, momentarily breaking contact. I solved it by wrapping a few lengths of electric tape around the batteries to create a nice sliding fit with no rattle.

Haven't had a problem since.